that's the sense in which the city's tribune, he's a alone centrist. >> karl marx said dickens issued to the world more social and political truth that had been uttered. >> but it's also the case that dickens' political vision was largely thought of in his lifetime by serious political thinkers as mickey mouse. there was a kind of profound naive tee about his way of thinking about ordering power within society. most of us we inherit from orwell's famous essay on dickens in which he said the whole problem with oliver twist is no system saved oliver twist. mr. brownwell saved him. >> dickens' whole point is that it's at the hands of systems that the poor were suffering. he was a kind of anti-ideologue. he perceived that some of the things that were being done to cure poverty, the statist moves were one o things the poor were suffering from. one of the reasons. >> it's not a criticism of a political novel to say that it doesn't offer a cure. it's not really the function of literature necessarily. what he does is to see it and show it. >> charlie: observe, expose and sometimes explain. >>